This thesis uses a framework of patriarchy to examine the legacy of nineteenth century thought on the construction of knowledge about gender relations cross-culturally. The development of anthropology in the late Victorian era contributed to the adoption and perpetuation of methodological practices and theoretical assumptions that marginalized women by using men's lives to generalize human experience. The thesis demonstrates how this androcentric bias that pervaded early ethnographic work was challenged and tempered by feminist thought and writing. Through a feminist critique of four anthropological texts the thesis also analyzes the ramifications of patriarchal and feminist thought on the discipline, on the practice of ethnography, and on the representations of women and men in non-western cultures. A textual analysis of the literature reveals that there is an ongoing need to develop alternative models of inquiry which will be better equipped to express the diversity of gender relations globally.
Kimberly Abshoff (Sun,) studied this question.